On a hunting trip in Kern county, Mr. Searles had a remarkable run of luck and piled three bears in a heap without moving out of his tracks or getting the least sign of fight.  It was so easy that he insisted upon going right through the Tehachepi range and killing all the Grizzlies infesting the mountains.  He and his party made camp in March, 1870, not far from the headquarters of General Beale’s Liebra ranch in the northern part of Los Angeles county.  Romulo Pico was then in charge at the Liebra, and nearly thirty years later, while hunting a notorious bear on the scene of Searles’s adventure, he told me the story of the fight.

Searles was armed with a Spencer repeater but had shot away the ammunition adapted to the rifle and had been able to procure only some cartridges which fitted the chamber so badly that two blows of the hammer were generally required to explode one of them.  Notwithstanding this serious defect of his weapon, Searles had so poor an opinion of the Grizzly that he went out alone after the bear several miles from camp.  There was some snow on the ground and on the brush, and finding bear tracks, Searles tied his horse and took the trail afoot.  He found a bear lying asleep under the brush and killed it, and while he was standing over the body he heard another bear breaking brush in a thicket not far away.

Leaving the dead bear, he took up the trail of its mate and followed until his clothing was soaked with melting snow and the daylight was almost gone.  The bear halted in a dense thicket and Searles began working his way through the chaparral to stir him up.  Of course the bear was not where his tracks seemed to indicate him to be, and the meeting was sudden and unexpected.  The bear rose within two feet of the hunter and almost behind him.  There was neither time nor room to put rifle to shoulder, and Searles swung it around, pointed it by guess and fired.  The ball did little damage, but the powder flash partly blinded the bear and it came down to all-fours and began pawing at its eyes, giving Searles an opportunity to throw in another cartridge and take fair aim at the head.

If Searles had not forgotten in his excitement the defect of his weapon, the bear fight would have been ended right there.  He pulled trigger with deadly aim, but the rifle missed fire.  Instead of re-cocking the piece and trying a second snap, he worked the lever, threw in a new cartridge and pulled the trigger.  Again no explosion.  Again he failed to remember the trick of the rifle, and tried a third cartridge, which also missed fire.

Then the bear became interested in the affair and turned upon the hunter at close quarters.  Seizing the barrel of the rifle in his jaws, the Grizzly wrenched it from Searles’s grasp, threw it aside and hurled himself bodily upon his foe.  Searles went down beneath the bear.  Placing one paw upon his breast the bear crunched the hunter’s lower jaw between his teeth, tore a mouthful of flesh from his throat and took a third bite out of his shoulder.  Then he rolled the man over, bit into his back and went away.